


catch a breath

by rjosettes



Series: Tumblr Fics [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Asthma, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Holding Hands, Jealous Stiles, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4754639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s nothing like being eight years old, unable to breathe, almost used to the sensation - and then, like a car catching fire after the crash, being seized by the shoulders and shaken by a classmate screaming in your face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	catch a breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katarama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/gifts).



> Written for my tumblr shipathon on the prompt 'Scott + Theo, asthma bros'.

There’s nothing like being eight years old, unable to breathe, almost used to the sensation - and then, like a car catching fire after the crash, being seized by the shoulders and shaken by a classmate screaming in your face. 

Scott doesn’t really hit the kid. He wouldn’t do that, and not just because it might get him in trouble. Other kids don’t know what it’s like. He ended up in the nurse’s office once while a girl in the grade below him slept on one of the beds. She didn’t look like she really had that much wrong with her, but he found out later that she’d had a seizure. That she’d lost control of her body. Scott can’t understand that, not really, even if he does forget where his arms and legs are sometimes when he’s playing and ends up knocking things over. Even if his lungs sometimes don’t work the way they’re supposed to.

That much he does understand, and so he tries to push the boy - it’s a blur, he won’t know who it was until later when he can even think about being in trouble - away from Theo. Theo who is wheezing for his life with a look of fear in his eyes as teachers swoop in on them from both sides.

He figures that a mom or a dad or somebody has come already. That’s what he tells himself while the teacher gives him the talk that Stiles and Jackson are usually getting instead. He nods at all the right parts, he thinks, even though he’s distracted, but the boy he knocked over scraped his knee and got his good school clothes all dirty, so he gets sent to the principal’s office anyway.

Scott’s stomach drops into his shoes when he sees Theo. Not an exhausted, relieved Theo with his head in someone’s lap as they tell him he’s okay. An alone (just for a moment, but how could he know?), scared Theo whose inhaler isn’t doing the job his lungs won’t do either. Scott’s old enough to know better than to ask questions about parents, especially to someone who can’t get enough air out to explain.

He takes matters into his own hands.

It’s probably not very cool to hold someone’s hand in school, but Scott does it anyway. He always likes to feel his mom’s hand when he’s upset or scared, and especially when his asthma is acting up. It’s like remembering with your body that someone is there to help. Remembering with his mind doesn’t always help so much. He squeezes Theo’s fingers tight to make sure he remembers extra good, and he starts to talk.

He doesn’t know how much time he has to fill or how much Theo pays attention to, but he does look a little less scared. More like some of the older kids look right before a test than somebody who thinks they’re about to kick the bucket. He keeps talking, still, about how his mom is a nurse at the hospital and she knows all about fourth grade boys with asthma, ‘cause she has one. He talks about the funny oxygen mask they put over your face and how the stretch part looks like it might pinch, but it doesn’t, and it’ll make his chest feel better.

“They might have to stick you,” he says, gravely serious but as calm as he can manage. That’s his least favorite part. “But the medicine works way better than your inhaler. You can’t breathe the medicine enough to get better right now, but they can put it right in your blood after they stick you.”

He doesn’t stop talking until Theo gets to go to the hospital. He can’t bring himself to feel ashamed when he finally sees the principal. His mom will get it, at least, and he’s not really in a whole lot of trouble. He never pushed anybody before, and he didn’t really mean to, anyway.

On Monday, Scott looks for Theo on the playground at recess and doesn’t find him at first. Finally, he looks by the spot no one really likes, where all the grass is kind of dead and there’s nothing to play with. Stiles follows at a distance, kind of wandering in their direction but keeping his distance while Scott looks around. Sure enough, he’s there where there’s less pollen and stuff to make him sick. Theo says thank you, from him and from his mom and dad, too, and they sort of high five. It’s time to go in, then, and Scott isn’t in Theo’s class.

He goes back out there the next day, though, and Stiles follows him all the way out this time. He tells seven lies about cool stuff he’s done in the first five minutes and Scott just laughs because Stiles’s mom says if you gave Stiles five minutes and the truth, he’d come out the other end with a comic book. Theo gets wide-eyed sometimes, glances at Scott like he expects a nod or a wave that everything’s real, but Scott just smiles at him.

Stiles breaks his arm three weeks later trying to show off and misses a day. Scott sits with Theo alone out in the dead grass spot, mostly quiet, just kind of watching stuff. It’s a nice recess.

He doesn’t really get why Theo waited so long to hold his hand again.


End file.
